“A cadet will not lie, cheat, steal, or tolerate those who do.”

The United States Military Academy Cadet Honor Code, quoted in William H. McRaven The Wisdom of the Bullfrog. McRaven adds that “Below the honor code is the mission of the United States Military Academy. The mission of West Point is not to produce Pattonesque geniuses, four-star generals, or presidents of the United States. The mission is to produce ‘leaders of character’. And the honor code provides the foundation of that character. The code beckons young men and women who aspire ‘to live above the common level of life.’”

In my latest Loonie Politics column I note the extraordinary contrast between England’s Bad King John, at a crisis in his reign, ordering books of theology in Latin for guidance and modern politicians I doubt even read trendy airport paperbacks on policy in English.

At COP29 in Baku, Azerbaijan I spoke with Alex Newman of the New American about the dangerous idealism of the delegates.

In my latest Epoch Times column I talk about the contrast between the “modern”, aka Westernized, world and much of the planet, with the specific example of what it was like inside and outside the conference centre at COP29 in Baku, Azerbaijan. (There’s also a video on the same theme.)

In my latest National Post column I argue that various embarrassing missteps by Canadian educational institutions, among others, show that the woke aren’t just nasty, they’re so narrow-minded they really don’t know anyone with a brain or a heart disagrees with them, let alone why.

“Let the common man bend more of his attention, more at least than he is doing at present, to the preservation of some permanent reason for living, some permanent thing worth fighting for. Let him take care of his philosophy, and his civilization will take care of itself.”

G.K. Chesterton in Illustrated London News August 4, 2006, quoted in Dale Ahlquist and Peter Floriani Chesterton University Student Handbook

In my latest Mercatornet column I say the election of Donald Trump has certainly had a depressing effect on the giant climate gabfest in Baku but far more as symptom than as cause.

“But leadership, no matter whether you are a midshipman or an admiral, is never easy. Even those who seemed carry the burden of leadership with ease often struggle. Carl von Clausewitz, the great nineteenth-century general who wrote the consummate book On War, once said that ‘everything in war is simple, but the simple things are difficult.’”

Author’s “Introduction” to William H. McRaven The Wisdom of the Bullfrog